Kindi is ONE.

 Is it possible?  Can she really be one already?  My 'baby' is not a baby any more.  She is getting to be more and more fun, but I can't help but be a little bit sad.  She is going to grow up way to fast, she is already pushing hard to keep up with Kaden.  She started walking before 10 months, and starting trying to talk about the same time.  Her first word was stickers believe it or not.  We were potty training Kaden and using stickers as an incentive.  So we spent a lot of time looking at and talking about stickers.  Of course if she said it to anybody but me you would think she was just babbling.  But it was very consistently the same sound every time.  :)  She is so much braver than Kaden when it comes to talking.  She tries new words all the time.  He used to look at us and grin with a mischievous look on his face.  He is really trying to talk now, but it is still pretty jumbled.  Kindi is also doing her best to follow in Kaden's monkey foot prints.  I hate this stage!  She is always managing to climb up on something and then standing up like she is the queen of the world.  She hasn't taken any really bad spills off of anything yet, but it sure makes me nervous and jumpy!  Thankfully she seems to have MUCH better balance and coordination than her brother!  It's a good thing too because although she is getting tougher, she is still quite the wimp.  I will have some more 1 year pictures that I'm pretty excited about, but for now... here is how Kindi's birthday went.

Since I decided to make Kindi's first birthday cake myself she got to enjoy her first beater!  Kaden showed her how and she dove right in leaving evidence of her treat all over her face and shirt.

 The day after Kindi's birthday I hosted a double baby shower and decided to make the cakes for that too.  I enlisted the help of a friend to make pretty fondant flowers for the shower and she made me a bunch of extras.  They were so pretty and girly that I used them to decorate Kindi's cake too, it made it so quick and easy to throw together a pretty cake.

 I made a small cake for Kindi to destroy out of two extra large cupcakes.  It had been so long since I had made frosting by myself that I got it a little bit too soft at first, so it was kind of running down the sides of her cake.  It firmed right up in the fridge though.  I figured it didn't matter too much, she was just going to make a mess out of it anyways.  So, did you notice there are two candle on it?  Oops!  I bought those cute curly candles so that I could use two of them as antennae for the butterfly cake I made for the shower.  So I didn't even think about it and grabbed two of each color and put them on the cakes.  I suppose it didn't look odd to me because I did two on Kaden's a few months ago.  It wasn't until Mom pointed it out that I realized my mistake.  We only lit one!  I also made a round cake for the rest of us to enjoy, cause who really wants to eat a cake that as been demolished by an excited one year old?

 Kindi did a pretty good job with her presents.  She had a lot of kids itching to help her. 

 My sister's kids' had wanted to play with the Vtech puppy they had gotten for her since they day they picked it out.  So they were pretty excited when she opened it.

 Daddy picked out a couple of really cute pink purse books.  Kindi loves to bring us books to read.

 I think Kindi was a little bit overwhelmed by all of the attention she was getting, and all of the eager hands reaching out to help her.  She did good with it though.

 I finished her quilt in time for her birthday!  Yay for me.  

 Grandma made up little treat bags full of party favors for all of the kids.  Kaden tried and tried and tried to blow his punching balloon up by himself.  He would give it to me and let me get it started then want to take it back to finish it.  It was pretty funny.  He never did succeed, but he had a blast!

 After presents we brought out the cake.  She was mesmerized.   I had high hopes that she would be able to blow her candle out by herself, but she doesn't really know how to aim her blowing yet.  She did try awfully hard to blow it out though.  I ended up blowing it out for her right before she tried to take a bite out of the flame.

 After we took the hot candle away she decided to blow the extra one out too.  What a cutie!

 She started out pretty slow, poking at the cake and pulling the flower off.  Lillie was a little confused, "Why doesn't she eat it with her face?!"  If you have ever seen pictures of Lillie's first birthday you will really appreciate that comment.  (She bent over and stuck her face in it.)  As Kindi got a taste of the frosting and realized that it was REALLY yummy, so got more into it.  She would grab at it then try to shove her whole hand into her mouth to suck it off.  

 You would expect a smile or two from a child who is devouring a chocolate cake, but she was quite serious about her task.  

 So we got Aunt Jeni down on the floor to tickle her and get her to smile.  Once she started smiling they started pouring out of her.  She had so much fun.  

This was a warm up cake smash.  On Saturday Kindi is going to be a model for a local photographer who needed some cake smash photos for her portfolio.  I am pretty excited to go do this.  I've been following Brandi Varnell Photography on facebook for awhile and really like what she does and her personality.  Plus because she requested to have 1 year old come destroy a cake in her studio, we get to do it for free!  And she is even going to give us some of the pictures on a disc.  I will have to post those when I get them too.

Kindi is 9 Months Old

Our Kindi is 9 months old and straining to be a big girl.  She spends most of her days pulling herself up and then letting go so she can stand in the middle of the room without anyone helping her.  Just like her big brother.  The last couple of days she has figured out that she can also walk around a little bit if she holds on to something.  I expect she will be running before we know it.  

It has been so nice now that she is crawling like a pro.  It is like she is a completely different child.  She is happy most of the day now, she doesn't need to be held all the time and she spends lots of time either chasing Kaden around or even playing by herself.  Now she has learned the art of climbing stairs though.  Oh does she ever get angry when we put the gate up at Mom's house.  She crawls up the two steps allowed her, holds onto the gate and cries her little heart out.  Completely devastated.  Hopefully she will learn how to safely come down the stairs soon too.

She is getting so pretty!

Kindi is 8 Months Old

Well I'm only half a month behind this time...  

My Kindi girl is 8 months old.  And she crawls!!!  

She just started crawling the day after Christmas.  She is still pretty slow and adorably deliberate with every placement of her hands.  She also still has a tendency to forget to move her hands...  She doesn't tolerate the face plants very well.

 I am so excited about her new ability.  I always suspected that she was extra cranky because she so intensely desired to follow her brother around and play with the toys on the other side of the room.  Turns out I was right!  Yesterday, while I worked on the computer and Jeremy and Kaden had a date, Kindi roamed around playing in Kaden's room (where most of the toys are) for at least half of an hour!  All by herself!!!  If you haven't spent much time with Kindi you won't realize what a miracle this is, but for this often haggard mommy it was a slice of heaven!

 Today she was so sweet following her daddy into the kitchen.  We were all in the living room and she was doing a great job playing with the books.  Jeremy went to work in the kitchen and she took off (like a snail) to hunt him down, twice.  Squealing with glee when she made it around the corner and there he was.  

She is still Kindi though, don't worry.  She still knows how to throw a fit, does not tolerate any kind of pain, and is a total Mama's girl.  But life just got a little bit sweeter (and a lot less cranky) in the Wells' household.

Time to Eat.

It's that time.  At her 4 month Well Baby appointment, Kindi's Dr. recommended starting her on cereal since we hadn't yet.  He said that sometimes the thicker substance helps with the reflux.  It makes it harder to spit up.  I hadn't thought about starting her on cereal yet, she was so much younger than Kaden was when I started him.  She was only four months and four days old!  Kaden was four months and TEN days old!  Hmm... Funny how that works!  

So I prepared her cereal nice and runny, she took the first bite and wrinkled her nose at me.  Took another bite or two then...

She dove in!  She had all four limbs flailing and was leaning towards the spoon straining to get more!  Too cute!  The funny part is that she did great the next day too, then she decided she didn't like it.  I continued to try to feed it to her over and over again, different temperatures and consistencies, but she would take one bite then scowl (and she knows how to scowl) and spit it out.  It wasn't even like she just couldn't figure out how to eat it.  I really believe she just didn't like it.  

Another example of how Kindi gets the short end of the stick?  When I started Kaden on solids I diligently fed him something every day!  I gave him something new every week.  Poor Kindi on the other hand.  I have good intentions of feeding her solids every day (Don't worry, I don't forget to nurse her!), but instead something came up, or I'll do it at the next feeding, or she's too cranky to try it right now, or oops, she's down for the night now.  So it took three weeks before I tried giving her something with a little more flavor to see if she would eat it better.  

The first taste sensation that we gave to Kaden was Carrots and that did not go over well at all!  So sticking with the same color (I read somewhere that you are supposed to start your baby with vegetables of course, but that you are suppose to introduce the orange foods first  followed by the green.  I don't know why this would make a difference, but it's easy to do so, whatever.) we started with Sweet Potatoes, which Kaden enjoyed his first time.

Did you notice that her bib is smeared, but her face is clean?  No I did not get my pictures in the wrong order.  I put her bib on and set her food on the counter with a spoon (that was my first mistake), then went to get a stool to sit on before I put her in the highchair (that was my second).  Well in that short amount of time, Kaden, who had apparently been watching me like a hawk, snagged her food (He is getting WAY too tall and always surprising me with what he can reach.) and proceeded to try to feed her.  He missed.  Thankfully!

Yeah, she is so not impressed!

Mom!  Why do you keep shoving weird things into my mouth?

Then I just have to go to all the work of spitting it back out!

Then I discovered that although she didn't enjoy eating a bite like a big person, she did enjoy sucking the sweet potatoes off of her spoon more like a bottle style.  Although I don't know that I would classify that face as pure enjoyment by any means!

Guess it's not too bad.

She did pretty good for her first taste of color.  She ate a third of the container which is much better than the 3 bites Kaden had his first time.  And I am proud to announce that since we have started colored food I am remembering to give her some to eat.  Every day even!  She ate another third of a container the next day and then I sent the last third with her to Mom's house while I went to the dentist on Wednesday.  Mom said she ate it all and was not satisfied!  I think she is going to be growing like a weed again here pretty soon!  Today she finished her second container of sweet potatoes like a pro and I think we will try something new tomorrow!  She probably would prefer not to, but I enjoy it so much!

Kaden being the ever helpful, ever vigilant big brother stands on the back of her highchair to supervise!

The Playland Returns.

This was Kaden's favorite place to play until he started crawling.  Now it is Kindi's turn to enjoy it.  I didn't get it out as early for her as we did with Kaden, because of Kaden!  Laying her on the floor in such a vulnerable position didn't seem like the wisest idea while Kaden was learning how to be a big brother!  He still gets a little clumsy and bumps her around some, but for the most part he tries to be careful with her.  Once in awhile his aggressive nature comes out and he wants to poke her belly or show me she has eyes, and gets too rough.  His latest is trying to move her from point A to point B.   The other day she was laying in the playland watching Kaden play with his toys and I went to wash my hands, or something like that.  When I got back to his room Kaden was backing out with Kindi's shorts in his hand.  The problem was that her foot was still attached to them!  He had tried to pick her up and instead grabbed her shorts to drag her out but the shorts pulled off, almost!  He'd pulled her a couple of feet or so!  You'd think Kindi would have been upset by this, but no.  She was grinning up at him. 

The stages of Kindi's development are so exciting.  At first she just stared at the pretty colorful toys above her, contentedly sprawled out.

Take my picture too Mom.

Now it is so fun to watch her learn how to grab toys and play with them. 

Kaden makes sure to get his play time in still!

Sometimes, in fact quite often, he just crawls right in with her and they have a blast.  Until he starts kicking the bars and toys start bumping into her face.

Kindi has a death grip on that poor frog's leg!  That toy was designed very smartly (Is smartly a real word?).  Kaden always liked to grab it too.  When it was Kaden's it sang though.  Since then the batteries have died.  I just tore it apart and am going to try replacing the batteries, but it was a pain.  I had to rip the seam and will have to sew it back together again.  I hope it works!  If not at least she has two other toys on there that will sing to her.  I don't know what happened to most of the original toys that came with it, so we just substitute other fun things!

The Story of a Boy and His Blocks.

Yay for learning to stack and being totally into it!  Seven high is the best he has ever done and I happened to be lucky enough to catch it on film!  Then Daddy came along...

...first the clocks got shoved up his shirt...

...then they wildly flung them around the room growling and yelling!

See!  That block is not attached to his hand, it is flying through the air!

Eating with a Fork!

Kaden is trying to grow up on me these days.  He absolutely loves to eat with a fork, just like the big people.  He struggles to get the food on the fork, then it is even harder to get it all the way to his mouth before it falls off. 

So he often just shoves it in his mouth after it falls off of the fork.  (I guess he isn't quite all grown up then!) Most of the time he prefers it if I get the food on the fork then let him put it in his mouth.

His cheeks are full but don't worry, that won't stop him from squishing more in them!

Check Me Out!

Get ready for another blog rush. You would think I would just take a few minutes and do these when I take the pictures, but no. I like to wait until I have a ton to do then spend lots of time working on them. :)

Who me?

In Kaden's world nothing should be on the coffee table. He walks in a circle around it tossing everything onto the floor.

Kaden drinks so much water! Hopefully we can keep him in that habit. :) And he always drinks his sippy cup with his left hand, other than that he seems to be right handed.

He has gotten so tall he can see out the screen door window now.

I'm already in trouble! This particular day Kaden ate a piece of Raisin Toast and two waffles. Another day he ate some cocoa puffs and 4, yeah that's right, FOUR pancakes. I hate to imagine what he will put away as a teen...

One day Kaden was watching his cousin Lily stack the coasters yet again after he tossed them all over the floor. Next thing we knew he was stacking them all by himself. It was fun to watch him concentrate, and he did it so well too. It wasn't like he got lucky or anything, he knew exactly what he wanted to do, and could just do it.

So now not only does he 'help' with the dishes, but he discovered that after he knocked this piece of Tupperware over he could stand on it and get stuff off of the counter. And he is so incredibly fast! I turn to the sink to rinse off another dish and by the time I turn back around he is pulling stuff off of the counter. Now I have to be careful what I put in the dishwasher... I usually have a pile of stuff off to the side of the sink that I put in right before I close it!

Just in case you were wondering. We had another baby appointment the other day. Baby's heart rate was 158 and she was moving around like crazy! We get to go in for our 20 week ultrasound on December 2nd and see if I am right about her being a girl! I can't wait.